
Class _Z_7j?L____ 



PROCEEDINGS ANNUAL MEETING. I35 

CORRESPONDING MEMBERS. 

George M. Elliott, Lowell, Mass.; Ben. Perley Poore, Col. Eben F, L 6 (^ 

Stone, Newburyport, Mass. ; Hon. Charles R. Train, Rev. George E. _ 

Ellis, D. D., of Boston, Mass. ; Hon. Edward A. Rollins, Philadelphia, (^ t3 vS ' 

Pa.; Hon. Angus Cameron, LaCrosse, Wis.; Gen. John B. Brown, 
Portland, Me. ; Hon. John Wentworth, Chicago, 111. ; Hon. Edmund L. 
Dana, Calvin Parsons, Wilkesbarre, Pa. ; William C. Crump, New Lon- 
don, Ct. ; Capt. George Eugene Belknap, ^ensacola, Fla. 

Mr. J. B. Walker read a paper in memory of the late Rev. 
Dr. Bouton as a historian ; and, on motion of Mr. G. G. Fogg, 
thanks were tendered to Mr. Walker for his valuable paper, and 
a copy of the same was requested for deposit in the archives of 
the society. 

The society then adjourned to meet at 7 :45 p. m., in the sen- 
ate chamher. 



EVENING SESSION. 

The society met in the senate chamber according to adjourn- 
ment, Vice-President Prescott in the chair. 

Mr. G. G. Fogg, from the committee to nominate new mem- 
bers, reported the name of Dr. John Wheeler, of Pittsfield, for 
a resident member of the society. The report was accepted, 
and Dr. John Wheeler was elected. 

On motion of Mr. G. G. Fogg, it was voted that Rev. James 
DeNormandie be invited to prepare and read to this society a 
memorial notice of the late Hon. William H. Y. Hackett, at 
the next annual meeting. 

The society then repaired to the representatives' hall, where 
the annual address was delivered, before a large audience, by 
Hon. James W. Patterson, of Hanover, his subject being, 
" Our Sectional Conflicts." 

On motion of Mr. J. B. Walker, thanks were tendered to 
the orator for his able and interesting address, and a copy of the 
same was requested for deposit in the archives of the society. 

Adjourned. 



REPORT OF THE MAJORITY OF THE COMMIT- 
TEE ON THE NAME " KEARSARGE." 



By John M. Shirley, Esq_. 



This society, at its annual meeting on June ii, 1877, created 
a committee of three "on the name ' Kearsarge,'" with Dr. 
Bouton at its head, and charged them " to report such facts as 
they may be able to collect at a future meeting of the society, 
of which due notice shall be given," &c. This action was 
taken in my absence, without any suggestion to me that it was 
contemplated even ; and you made me a member of that com- 
mittee knowing that every minute of my time was engrossed 
in other fields, and that it was impracticable, if not impossible, 
for months, at least, for me to give the subject proper attention. 

Dr. Bouton carefully examined the historical evidence then 
accessible upon the subject, from the Gardner map or plan 
down to the later acts of Commodore Winslow. 

On March 19, 1S7S, the society held its meeting at the room 
of the state historian ; and upon notice to all, two of the com- 
mittee, Dr. Bouton and myself, were there for conference as to 
the path to be pursued. At that time the chairman, so far as 
he had not already done so, put me in full possession of his 
views. We then agreed upon the line of examination to be 
made by myself, and that he should embody his views, which 
he had substantially committed to paper, in the form of a report, 
and submit the same, with such evidence as he saw fit, to me 
for my examination. It soon became as apparent to me as to 
others that the days of my good old friend were numbered, and 
that he must soon " pass over the unseen river." 

After the conference in March I had three interviews with 
the chairman in the presence of members of his family. His 
mind was still clear, and full of the subject. 






KEARSARGE. 137 



At the last, he sorrowfully informed me that he was too ill 
to embody his views in the form of a report, as had been 
arranged between us, but that I should find them in substance 
in a bundle of papers, mainly the work of his own hand, at 
his house. His parting injunction was, to call soon at his 
house and get the papers, and see that his views were laid be- 
fore the society. In a few days I called. He was too ill to see 
me, but sent the papers by the hand of his daughter, and they 
are now in my possession. 

Had Dr. Bouton lived, he would have spoken to you here in 
our joint names. Under the circumstances, I have felt it my 
duty to decline the invitation extended to me by one of my 
associates, Mr. Fox, to vacate my place upon this committee; 
and though the language is my own, I speak to-day both for 
the dead chairman and myself. 

The inquiry with which we are charged relates primarily to 
two mountains in this state, — one in the northern part of Mer- 
rimack, and the other in Carroll county. For convenience I 
shall refer to them in the order named. The history of the 
mountain in Merrimack county is necessarily interwoven with 
portions of the history of Massachusetts, the Masonian proprie- 
tarv, the Merrimack valley, and in particular with that of what 
is now Franklin, Boscawen, Salisbury, Andover, Warner, Sut- 
ton, and Wilmot. 

We have no means of fixing the precise age of this mountain, 
but it undoubtedly has existed for a longtime in the same place, 
and has long been known by substantially the same name it now 
bears, though apparently this did not come to the knowledge of 
all the members of this committee until recently. In order that 
certain historical evidence may have its just weight, and no 
more, it must be read and weighed in the light of the history to 
which reference has just been made. We will summarize and 
condense as much as possible. 

In 1641 Massachusetts extended her jurisdiction over New 
Hampshire under the claim that her charter gave it to her by 
the words " all those lands and hereditaments whatsoever 
which lie and be within the space of three English miles to the 
northward of said river called Monomack alias Merrimack, or 
to the northward of any and every part thereof." This line, 
wherever found, by the express terms of the charter extended 



1 38 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

*•' to the south sea on the west part." Such a step was not taken 
on the spur of the moment, but prior ones led up to it. The 
train had been carefully laid by preconcert and a variety of 
events. Settlements had been pushing beyond their former 
limits. Petitions for " farm lands " had flowed in. Acquaint- 
ance had been opened with the Indians and with the traders 
who knew of the upper Merrimack valley. 

Burdet and others removed to Dover about 1636 ; Burdet be- 
came governor, and soon manifested his hostility to the jurisdic- 
tion of Massachusetts. He made Dover a place of refuge for 
the Antinomian exiles from Boston. Gov. Winthrop thereupon 
wrote them, intimating the intention of the Massachusetts gen- 
eral court "to survey the utmost limits of their patent, and 
make use of them." i Belknap 19. 

The general court, therefore, on July 6, 163S, ordered " Good- 
man Woodward, Mr. John Stretton, with an Indian & two 
others appointed by the magistrates of Ipswich, are to lay out 
the fine, figure three miles northward of the most northernmost 
part of Merrimack for which they are to have 55. a day apiece." 
On May 22, 1639, ^3 ^^^^ same authority, "Goodman Wood- 
ward was ordered to have £3 for his journey to discover the 
running up of the Merrimack ; 105. more was added by order 
of the gov. and dep. and they which went with him Tho. 
Houlet, Sargent Jacob, Tho. Clarke & John Manning to have 
505. apeice &c." 

On September 5, 1639, "the treasurer was ordered to pay 
John Gardner 20s. for witness charge & carrying Goodman 
Woodward, his instruments to Ipswich." 

John Gardner was undoubtedly the one who afterwards be- 
came so noted in Massachusetts as a surveyor. What we have 
quoted shows beyond any reasonable doubt that five men were 
sent "to lay out the line three miles northward of the most 
northernmost part of the Merrimack," and that they did what 
they were sent to do, and were paid for doing it ; but we are 
not left to inference, nor compelled to stop with the traditions, 
that they went to the place "three miles due north of the 
crotch" of the two rivers, — in a word, to the si'hts of what was 
so long known as Endicott's tree, — nor to the reasons assigned 
by those traditions why the explorers went no farther. An 



KEARSARGE. I39 

ancient and eminent historian, after reciting it at length, sum- 
marizing the preexisting history of Massachusetts and New 
Hampshire, says, — "During these transactions the Massachu- 
setts people were inquiring into the bounds of their patent. In 
1639 they sent persons to find out the northermost part of 
Merrimack river. A line to run east from three miles of the 
head of the river will take in the whole of New Hampshire. 
They determined, therefore, that it came within their jurisdic- 
tion ; and from that time they allowed plantations to be settled 
particularly at Hampton as well as at any part of the colony, 
and exercised jurisdiction over them ; but they left those on the 
river to their liberty." i Hutchinson io8. 

Another, more eminent still, under the date of 1639, says, — 
*' Rendered sanguine with respect to their future importance 
by the rapidit}' with which they had attained their present 
growth, the government of Massachusetts in this year set on 
foot an enquiry respecting the extent of their patent, and for 
this purpose deputed persons to explore the Merrimack, and to 
ascertain its northernmost point. Their charter granted them 
the lands within lines drawn three English miles south of 
Charles river, and the same distance north of the Merrimack. 
They construed this description as authorizing a line to be 
drawn due east from a point three miles north of the head of 
Merrimack, which soon leaves that river, and includes within 
Massachusetts all New Hampshire and a considerable part of 
Maine. Having come to this exposition of their charter, they 
declared New Hampshire, in which there were a few scattering 
habitations, to be within their jurisdiction, and proceeded to 
authorize settlements in that country. 

"Although very early attempts had been made to colonize 
the northern or eastern parts of New England, those attempts 
had hitherto proved almost entirely unsuccessful." i Marshall's 
Washington 127, 128. 

It is self-evident to any person who is at all familiar with the 
localities, that neither Goodman Woodward, John Gardner, nor 
any other person could have traversed the route, either by land 
or water, to Penacook and Franklin or "Aquedahian," without 
finding themselves confronted day by day by the lone peak of 
what was practically the sole mountain in all the region. 



140 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

It is evident from Waldron's testimony that after about 1635 
he was familiar through the Indians with Penacook, both forks 
of the Merrimack, and since 1659, at all events, with the region 
about Penacook, in person. It is equally evident, from the tes- 
timon3-of Peter Weare, that since about 1637 he had in the same 
way become fi^miliar with the same region, he "having often- 
times travelled the country," and " some of the natives always 
with" him; and that he had been with Indians upon a great 
mountain on the north side of lake " Winnipicioket." 

The general court took further action on May 31, 1652. On 
that day it was "voted by the whole court that the extent of 
the line is to be from the northernmost part of the river Merri- 
macke & three miles more north where it is to be found, be it 
an hundred miles more or less from the sea, & thence upon a 
straight line east & west to each sea, and this to be the true 
interpretation of the termes of the limmitte northward graunted 
in the patent." i Prov. Pap. 200. 

At the same term of the court it was also voted " for the bet- 
ter discovery of the north line of our pattent it is ordered by 
the court that Capt. Symon Willard, & Capt. Edward Johnson 
be appointed as commissioners to procure such artiste & other 
assistants as they shall judge meete to goe with them to find 
out the most northlv part of Merrimack river, & that they be 
supplied with all manner of nessessaryes by the treasurer fitt 
for this journey, and that they use their utmost skill and abil- 
itie to take a true observation of the latitude of that place, & 
that they doe it with all convenient speed and make return 
thereof to the next session of this courte." lb. 200, 201. 

The artists were certainly at "Aquedahtan " on August i, 
1652. The affidavit of Sherman and Ince is as follows : " The 
answer of John Sherman, seargeant at Watertowne, and Jon- 
athan Ince, student at Harvard college in Cambrig, to Capt. 
Symon Willard & Capt Edward Johnson, commissioners of 
the general court held at Boston, May 27, 1652, concerninge 
the latitude of the northermost part of Merrimacke river. 
Whereas we Job. Sherman & Jonathan Ince, were procured 
by the aforesaid commissioners to take the latitude of the place 
above named, our answer is that Aquedahian, the name of the 
Merrimacke where it issues out of the lake Winnapusseakit 



KEARSARGE. 14! 

upon the first of August, one thowsand six hundred fifty-two, 
we observed & b}' observation found, that the latitude of the 
place was forty three degrees, forty minutes and twelve seconds, 
besides those minutes which are to be allowed for the three 
miles more north which run into the lake." lb. 201. 

The return of the commission is as follows: " Capt. Symon 
Willard and Cap. Edward Johnson, a committe appointed by 
the last generall court to procure artists to joyn with them to 
finde out the most northerly part of Alerrimacke river, respect- 
ing the lyne of our patent, having procurred Sargeant John 
Sherman of Water towne, & Jonathan Ince, a student at Har- 
vard college, as artists to goe along with them, made their re- 
tourne of what they had donne, and found viz. : 

"John Sherman & Jonathan Ince on their oathes say, that at 
Aquedahtan, the name of the head of Merrimack, where it issues 
out of the lake called Winnapuseakit, vppon the ist day of 
August, 1652, wee observed, and by observation found, that the 
latitude of the place was 43°, 40', 12", beside those minutes 
which are to be allowed for the three miles more north which 
run into the lake." Mass. Records, i Mass. Coll. Records, 
part I, 109. 

" The said commissioners brought in their bill of chardge, 
which they expended, and promised on, & to those that went 
that journey to finde out the most northerly part of Merrimacke, 
which was 28/ 12, 10, which the court allowed, and ordered 
that the persons concerned should be satisfied out of the rate 
according as they were promised ; and further doth order the 
treasurer to satisfy to Captajne Willard and Captajne Johnson 
twenty markes a pecee for their pajnes." lb. 

In 1665 the general court called Willard, Johnson, Waldron, 
and Weare into court, and put their testimony under oath on 
file. This, it is obvious, was because it was a matter of conse- 
quence, and not for mere idle form. Willard and Johnson tes- 
tify as follows: "Whereas the generall court of Massachu- 
setts in the yeare 1652, appointed us whose names are under- 
subscribed, to lay out the northern line of our patent, and now 
being called to give testimony of what wee did therein, to this 
we say as followeth : Besides our returne in the court book, 
p. 103, we indented with two Indians, well acquainted with 



142 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

Merremak rive and the great lake to which wee went, borne 
& bred all their days thereupon, the one named Pontauhum, 
the other Ponbakin, very intelligent as any in all those parts, 
as wee conceive. We covenanted with them to lead us up 
Merremake river so far as the river was MerremaUe river. 
When we came short of the lake about sixty miles, then came 
two rivers into, one from the westward of the north, & the 
other from the northward of the east. The westerly river to 
me, as I then thought, was bigger then the other ; but taking 
notice of both these rivers, and knowing we must make use but 
of one, I called the Indians to informe us which was Merre- 
make river; their answer was the river which was next unto 
us, that came from the easterly point which river wee followed 
unto the lake." i Prov. Pap. 289. 

This brings us to the consideration of the ancient manuscript 
map or plan of the Merrimack valley, brought to our attention by 
the late Dr. A. J. Thompson, formerly of Laconia in this state, 
and latterly of Salem, Mass. 

This plan was found among the maps and papers of Essex 
county, Mass. It bears no date, and, so far as ascertained, no 
other papers contain a distinct and unequivocal reference to it. 
It bears upon its face this endorsement: " Plat of Meremack 
river from ye see up to Wenepesoce pond, also the corses from 
Dunstable to Penny-cook, Jno. Gardner." Whether it is the 
original or a copy is immaterial. It is without doubt the ear- 
liest " plat" yet discovered of Merrimack river from its souixes 
to its moutli. Its style of description shows it to have been 
prepared or drawn from data gathered at a very early period. 
It gives, as it were, a photograph of the river, with the lakes 
and mountains in the distance. It shows the line traced dis- 
tinctly from Dunstable to Penacook on the east side of the 
river, with every angle ; and the distances tabulated from angle 
to angle tally with each other and with the scale of miles. 
They are uniform ; but if the tests of to-day are to be applied, 
overrun, in harmony with the i^est of this outline map, the Sun- 
cook is put where it belongs. The "plat" itself points out 
what are to be treated as islands and falls. Below Penacook 
these islands and falls are indicated substantially as they now 
are. The Uncanoonucks, Massabesic lake, and Amoskeag falls 



KEARSARGE. 1 43 

are laid down substantially as any intelligent resident of Man- 
chester would now place them. Up to Penacook the plan 
seems to have been based upon actual survey. Above, the plan 
of the river and landmarks is such as would naturally be 
sketched bv a practical surveyor, familiar with rough and woody 
countries, and having a clear conception of relative localities 
and distances; and this is especially true of the river itself, the 
lower Pemigewasset, the forks and the region west of them, 
and the Merrimack. The plan of Lake Winnipiseogee, the 
bays, or "ponds" as they are termed, and the general course 
of the river as traced, tend strongly to show that " the artists" 
could not have gone far beyond the fork at Franklin ; and the 
probabilities are quite as strong that the observations from 
which this part of the plan was drawn were made from the top 
of Kearsarge itself. The mountain is distinctly indicated on 
this map, is put down as Carasaga, and, tested as before, 
its peculiar top is located about fifteen, instead of eleven, miles 
from the fork of the rivers, and apparently a few degrees south 
of west, which is its actual location. 

The actual distance from the fork to the lake, by the present 
lines of travel, is about twenty miles; but following the course 
of the river, several miles further. By this plan, tested by the 
scale, it is about thirty, and by the " returne " of the artists in 
1652, who followed the river, sixty miles. 

The plan does not represent either the eastern or southern 
portions of the lake, or its general form. Every one who has 
seen "the bays" from Bay hill in Northfield, or is at all 
familiar with the localities, knows that they apparently rise one 
above another, like the seats in a Roman amphitheatre ; that 
between the lake and Beaver dam are what are known as Long 
bay. Round bay, Great bay, Sanbornton bay, and Little bay. 
All these, in size or otherwise, are noticeable bodies of water, — 
much more so than the smaller ponds, or the islands, falls, and 
streams, noted down so carefully on other parts of the plan. 
The Long bay commences but a short distance below the 
Weirs. It is a marked body of water, but not the largest be- 
low the lake. Yet it is not represented at all on this plan 
unless located miles below the lake, and connected through all 
that distance by a narrow thread-stream, nor unless it is to be 



14^ NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

treated as the largest pond below the lake. It, in fact, is in 
close proximity to the pond below it, but if represented on this 
plan it is several miles from it. In truth, the internal evidence 
is strong that the author of this sketch was ignorant of the ex- 
istence of Long bay, and therefore never attempted to repre- 
sent it at all. To assume that this part of the plan is the work 
of the artists of 1652, or of those who for generations came after 
them, is to assume either that they were never there, or that 
they could not see, or that they were incapable of representing 
or sketching with substantial accuracy w^hat they saw ; and 
yet what appears on the plan, — the lake, the ponds, and the 
general topography, — is precisely what can now be seen almost 
any good day, when the streams are full, from the top of Kear- 
sarge, and what the writer has seen time and again before he 
ever dreamed of the existence of this plan. 

The author of this sketch, too, apparently had no knowledge 
of the giant pine on the Pemigewasset, three miles north of the 
crotch, known as "■ Endicott's tree;" and yet this landmark of 
landmarks, the initial point through which the line as claimed 
by Massachusetts ran, was "commonly known," to use the 
studied language of the master spirits of the Company of Massa- 
chusetts Bay, in 1667 and before that time, as it was for at least 
seventy years afterwards. 

Richard Hazzen, the pioneer in the settlement of the Merri- 
mack valley, and a great surveyor, was born July 20, 1696. 
He graduated at Hai-vard college in 171 7. With his brother 
Moses he was one of the first proprietors of "Pennycook," was 
active in the settlement, and made many of the early surveys 
there and in that region. Few men in the country were as 
familiar with the region as he, and very few even at this day 
are as familiar with the topography of the country, the location 
of the ponds and streams, and their names from below Monad- 
nock to Lake Winnipiseogee, as was Richard Hazzen. 

He surveyed the southerly line of New Hampshire, com- 
mencing March 20, 1740- Iii his diary, under the date of 
April 13, i740-'4i, he says, — "This day we measured from 
Hoseck river 4:2:0, which was only over one mountain. 

" Observations. This mountain was exceeding good land, 
bearing beech, black birch & hemlock, some bass-wood. Over 



KEARSARGE. I45 

this mountain we concluded the line would run betwixt New 
York government & these whenever it should be settled, and 
therefore nam'd it Mount Belcher that it might be as standing 
a boundary as Endictitt''s tree." 

The testimony of Johnson, Willard, and others of 1665 (ap- 
parently in the nature of depositions in perpetuani)., was taken 
in full view of the coming storm between Massachusetts and the 
royal commissioners. The course of that colony, sometimes 
high-handed in the extreme, had raised up inany enemies who 
had not been idle. A variety of charges had been sent to the 
home office, among which was the one that the colony had put 
a new gloss or interpretation upon their charter, and had, in 
consequence, disregarded the "bound-house" limits established 
by themselves, and had extended their boundaries, as before 
stated, by usurpation. The commission to Col. Nicolls and 
others to settle the "differences and dispvites" which had 
"arisen upon the lymmitts and bovmds of their severall charters 
and jurisdictions," &c., passed the great seal April 25, 1664. 
Private negotiations, which rendered them measurably familiar 
with what had been done by the colony, began between the 
commissioners and the authorities of Massachusetts. On July 
20, 1664, Maverick, one of the commissioners, says, — "I shall 
desire you to repaire to the govr. & councell, and advise them 
to take care how they dispose of such things as may bee out of 
their bounds and not lit for them to take cognizanze of, his 
majestyes commissioners being at length come into these parts 
(of whom you know me to be one)." 

On July 16, 1665, the commissioners, in their reply to the 
governor and council, make their prime charge the usurped 
extension of the limits of the colony beyond the "bovmd-house," 
and suggest "'Tis possible that the charter which you so much 
idolize may be foi'feited, and it may probably be supposed that 
it hath been many way forfeited ; untill you have cleared your- 
selves of those many injustices, oppressions, violences and blood, 
for which you are complained against, to which complaints you 
have refused to answer, or until you have his majesties pardon, 
which can neither be obtained by nor bee eftectuall to those 
who deny the king's supremacy." On July 26, 1665, the com- 



146 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

missioners follow up these charges in a letter to Sir Henry Ben- 
nett, the secretary of state, devoting almost the entire paper to 
this usurpation by extending the limits, and urging that the 
charter should be taken away. In 1665 the commissioners, in 
their report to the king, sandwich, between the ill-treatment of 
the Qiiakers and the feasting of the Regicides on the part of 
Massachusetts, the charge that " By their south line they in- 
trench upon the colonies of New-Plymouth, Rode Island and 
Conecticot, and on the east they have usurped Captain Mason's 
and Sr. Ferdinand Gorges patents and said that ye comissrs. 
had nothing to doe betweixt them and Mr. Gorge, because his 
matie. comanded them either to deliver possession to Mr. Gorge 
or to give his matie. reasons why they did not." They, in 
effect, also charge the colony with bolstering up this usurpation 
by maps made without actual survey. They say, "They 
caused at length a mapp of their territories to be made, but it 
was made in a chamber by direction and guess. In it they 
claime Fort Albany, and beyond it all the lands to the south 
sea." 

In the letter of the king to the colony, of April 10, 1666, re- 
ferring to this report, he says, — "And for the better prevention 
of all differences and disputes upon the bounds and limits of 
the several colonyes. His Majesty's pleasvire is, that all determin- 
ations made by His Majesty's said commissioners with reference 
to the said bounds and limits may still continue to be observed, 
till upon a full representation of all pretences. His Majesty shall 
make his own final determination." 

The answer of the colony of September 6, 1676, was the 
handiwork of skilled and experienced men. In form it was a 
reply to the petition of Mason ; but from the nature of the case, 
almost necessarily an answer to the charges of Mason made 
before the general court in 1652, the complaints which had 
been sent to the home office, and the charges of the royal com- 
missioners in 166^, as well as the specific allegations made by 
Mason. After reciting the grant of 1628, and the Royal Char- 
ter of March 4, 1629, they say, "In pursuance whereof many 
of the said patentees and other adventurers transported them- 
selves and estates and settled in the most known accommodable 
parts of those lands conatained in the said charter, neither time, 



KEARSARGE. I^y 

estate nor power suffering them speedily to survey the just ex- 
tent of their limits. Not many years distant in time several 
others also of His Majesty's subjects obtained other grants and 
made several settlements in the more northern and eastern parts 
of the country, with whom for several years we had neighborly 
correspondence being as they supposed without the limits of 
our patent, amongst Avhom the present claimants and petition- 
ers wei'e. These grants partly by reason of the smallness of 
some of them and partly by reason of darke and involv'd and 
dubious expression of their limits brought the inhabitants under 
many entanglements and dissatisfactions among themselves 
which there being no settled authority to be applied to, being 
deserted and forsaken of all such as by virtue of said grant did 
claim jurisdiction over them, and had made a successless essay 
for the settlement of government among them proved of some 
continuance unto the great disquiet and disturbance of those of 
His Majesty's subjects that were peaceable and well disposed 
among them ; to remdy which inconvenience they betook them- 
selves to the way of combinations for government, but by expe- 
rience found it ineffectual." 

They further say, — " In this time ignorance of the northerly 
running of Merrimack river hindered our actual claim, and ex- 
tension of government, yet at length being more fully settled, 
and having obtained further acquaintance and correspondence 
with the Indians possessing the uppermost part of that river, 
encouraging an adventure as also frequent solicitations from the 
most considerble inhabitants of these easterly parts earnestly 
desiring us to make proof of and ascertain our interest we em- 
ployed the most approved artists that could be obtained who 
upon their solemn oathes made returns that upon their certain 
observation our northern patent line did extend so far north as 
to take in all those towns and places which we now possess." 

They then recite the voluntary submission to the government 
of Massachusetts of these inhabitants, commencing with "Dover 
Swamscot and Portsmouth Anno 1641." They then set out 
the conduct of the royal commissioners ; then discuss the lan- 
guage of their patent with reference to the "river of Merri- 
mack" "from Winipesioke lake to the mouth thereof;" assert 
that " according to the aforementioned observation so confirmed 
VOL. IX. 12 



I4S NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

all those eastern plantations challenged by our opponents (ut 
supra)^ are comprehended within our northerly line." They 
concede that they have not made "the exact survey of so large 
a grant in so hedious a wilderness possessed by an enemy." 
They claim that when they established the "bound house" in 
1 63 1 they did not know the uttermost extent of their right. 
They charge Mr. Mason "with ignorance of the coasting of 
the country," and allege in substance that he followed cove and 
hai'bor on the coast line. They charge that Mason's agent left 
the region in 1634. 

Few things are more manifest than that this answ^er refers to 
a state of things existing between the establishment of the 
"bound house" in 1631 and the explorations in 1652. It is 
noticeable that in one instance the precise words used by the 
general court in 1639, "^ relation to the appointment of Good- 
man Woodward, are used ; that the term artists here used 
may refer to the work of both explorations ; and that in other 
places this answer refers beyond a doubt to the explorations of 
Willard, Johnson, and Ince in 1652, and the sworn returns. 
The connection is too obvious for further comment. 

We pass by the note-books of the scouts who took in the full 
view of the mountain from the Unconoonock and elsewhere, 
but give no name, and come to the journal of Captain Samuel 
Willard, exhumed and brought to our attention by the praise- 
w^orthy industry of George E. Emery, formerly of Andover, 
N. H., but now of Lynn, Mass. In his journal of July, 1725? 
Willard says, — " Thursday 39 we marched north & bee west 
about 9 milles, and corsed several branches of Miller's river, & 
campt & set out scout which found where ye Indians had lived 
last year ; — & made a canoe at ye north end of a long pond. 
Friday 30 we marched north in ye forenoon, and came to a 
pound which run into Contocook river & in ye afternoon 
marched N. W. in all about 12 miles, & campt at Peewunseum 
pound & sent ovit skouts 4 miles & they found 3 wigwams 
made last year. They also found in one of them a paddle and 
some squash shells which we suppose they carried from Rut- 
land. Saturday 31 we marched 12 miles & I with 14 men 
campt on ve top of Wannadnack mountain* & discovered 2,6 

* See history of Ipswich,— note. 



KEARSARGE. I49 

pounds, saw Pigwackett lying one point from said mountain, 
& Cusagecf mountain, and Winnepescockey laying N. E. from 
said Wannadnack ; the same day we found several old signs 
"which ye Indians had made the last year & w^here y't they 
camped when they killed ye people at Rutland as we imagine." 

"Cusagec"is probably a clerical error; the word intended 
is probably the word used elsewhei^e "Cusagee." 

On July 4, 1733, the proprietors of what is now Boscawen 
voted to pay Mr. Richard Hazen, surveyor, ten pounds for his 
services in taking a plan of the plantation, and the three chain 
men that were witlr said surveyor six days apiece six and thirty 
shillings a man for their service in assisting him, the said sui"- 
veyor. They also voted that the committee, — Joseph Gerrish, 
William Isley, John Coffin, Tristram Little, and Joseph Noyes, 
they being nine days with Mr. Hazen in taking a plan of the 
aforesaid plantation, shall have ten shillings a day each man for 
their service. 

Upon this plan, now on file in Boston, is a representation of 
an irregular hill along the northern boundary, with the inscrip- 
tion, " Supposed to be one of ye Kiasaga Hills." Hazen, in 
another note, calls the region ''Kiasarja," and speaks of " the 
hills." Hazen's plan of what was afterwards "Major Steven's 
town," made from the survey of October 39, 1739? represents 
the mountain, but gives no name. Clough's survey of " Steph- 
enstown " gives a sketch of the mountain, with the inscription, 
"An exceeding mountain, called by the Indians Coowissewas- 
seek, and by the English, Cire-sarg." 

Captain Ladd's company left Exeter July 14, 1746, in pursuit 
of Indian enemies. Abner Clough, his clerk, kept a journal. 
That shows that on July 23, 1746, they were at Contoocook. 
Under the head of July 34th, Clough says, — " And from there 
marched to a place called Contoocook pond, and scouted round 
about the pond, but could make no discovery, and from thence 
to Blackwater Falls. And one of our men says he saw an 
Indian very plain, as he was some distance from the scout, as 
he saith. And we ranged about, but could make no further dis- 
covery, then marched over several brooks and low places, but 
could make no discovery, & so marched to a river called Cur- 

t In History of New Ipswich the name is spelled " Cusagee." 



150 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

rier Surge river ^ & found some camps supposed to be Indiani 
camps, and there camped in the intervale. And it rained hard 
all night. This day's march about seventeen miles." 

The next day they marched to " Almsbury pond," and thence- 
to " Contoocook Falls." 

No man, with Clough's journal before him, can traverse this 
route, and in particular the territory between the West meeting- 
house in Salisbury and the crown of Apple hill in Andover, 
without acquiring a distinct conception, both of the localities 
noted by him, and what he meant by " Currier Sarge river." 
Before this, Clough had no acquaintance with the Kearsarge 
" region." 

Expeditions in search of scalps were not in the habit of taking 
with them guide- or spelling-books, or geographical or pro- 
nouncing dictionaries. They did take guns, ammunition, and 
scouts or guides. Clough noted down what he saw, and, as to 
the names of localities, what he took from the lips of those who- 
were with him. It is quite clear that Clough had no knowledge 
of the great bend which the Blackw^ater makes to the east, com- 
mencing near Pingry's Falls in Salisbury and taking in the whole 
Beech Hill region in Andover and Salisbury. It is clear that 
the place where the}^ encamped was in the " interval," a mile 
or more below the bend, and near where the Blackwater pours 
apparently from the mountain, vuider the lofty bluft' of one of 
the "Kearsarge hills," into the head of this " interval." What 
he there saw^ he called Currier Sarge river. He cei'tainly could 
not have referred to anything else than the Blackwater, at that 
point. These intervals then were the intervals of the Kiah- 
sarge river, and a part of the Kearsarge "region," and were 
from six to ten miles in an air line from the intervals of the 
other Keya Sargg river in Sutton, on the other side of the moun- 
tain, or about fourteen miles by the now usually travelled road. 
When he took the first name from the lips of others, he would 
write it as he would the names of the persons who commonly 
bore it. The names " Kiah" and " Currier " were idem sonans. 
Then and for generations since, the word pronounced " Ki-ah "■ 
was indiscriminately written "Kiah," and " Currier," and that 
usage has continued in the vicinity of the mountain to this day, 
though within the last thirty or forty years it has become more 



KEARSARGE. I5I 

popular, and is deemed more aristocratic, to spell it and pro- 
nounce it " Currier." One of the race recently died in Ando- 
ver, between ninety and one hundred years of age, who was 
never known by any other name than " Ki-ah," and the same 
is believed to be true of his ancestors, certainly so far as any 
knowledge of them can be gleaned, and yet the name was 
spelled " Kiah " and " Currier." 

The decision by the highest court of the state, pronounced 
fifty-six years ago by Mr. Justice Woodbury, in Tlbbets v. 
Kiah, 2 N. H. 557, where the defendant set up that his name 
was spelled " Currier," was hardly necessary to show that 
whether the name was spelled one way or the other was of no 
-consequence. 

Perrystown, now Sutton, was granted in 1749 by the Ma- 
.sonian proprietors, to Captain Obadiah Perry and sixty-two 
others from Haverhill, Mass., and its vicinity. The grant 
described the territory as " a certain tract of land, lying on the 
west side Ky a Sargg hill," seven and one fourth miles long and 
five wide. 

The first family settled in the town in 1767, and no other till 
1770. The first meeting of the proprietors was held at Haver- 
hill, Mass., December 14, 1749. In 1750 the notice for the 
second meeting of the grantees was directed to " the proprie- 
tors to a tract of land lying on the westerly side of Ci a Sarge 
hill so called." On April 23, 1752, a meeting was called by a 
committee, and was directed "to all the proprietors of a cer- 
tain tract of land granted by the proprietors of the rights of 
John Tufton Mason, Esq., near Ci a Sarge hill, called Perrys- 
town." On October 29, 1755, a meeting was called, directed 
to "the proprietors of Perrystown, so called, lying near Chi a 
Sarge!" On October 10, 1761, a meeting was called by a 
committee, and directed to "the proprietors of Perrystown so 
called near Kia Sargg hill." At this meeting a committee was 
chosen to " prelamble" the line of said tract of land, and make 
return the next meeting. On November 30, 1761, the commit- 
tee reported " that it is the best place for a saw-mill to be 
built to serve the town is to set said mill on the falls in Key a 
Sargg river, which falls beres southardly or southwesterly from 
our meeting-house lot." These falls were below Sutton South. 



152 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

This mill was the first one built in town, and was known as 
Jones's mill. A meeting was called by a justice of the peace, 
on October 2, 1765, reciting that an application had been made 
to him by " more than one sixteenth part of the owners of 
PerresTown (so called) near Chya-sarge Mountain in said prov- 
ince." A meeting was called, as others had been, at Plaistow. 

What is now known as Andover and Salisbury has been gen- 
erally supposed to have been granted by the Masonian proprie- 
tary at different times, and this is true so far as the elaborate 
grants stuffed with details are concerned. That of Stevenstown 
was made October 35, 1749; that of New Bretton, November 
20, 1751 ; but the substantial grant of both was made at the 
same time, and by the same vote, for on December 7, 1748, the 
proprietors voted " that Ebenezer Stevens, Esqr., & associ- 
ates have a township equal to six miles square : beginning on 
the north of Contoocook in the most convenient form ; without 
interfering with the township called No. 9 [?], as the grantors- 
shall think proper ; and that Mr. Edmund Brown & associ- 
ates have a township equal to six miles square joyning upon 
the north side of Stevens's & associates above said tract upon 
the west side of Pemigewasset river upon such reservations and 
limitations hereafter to be agreed upon." Andover was at first 
called Brownstown, from Edmund Brown. 

The river was made the base line for these three towns. The 
side lines of Boscawen were parallel, and ran fifteen degrees 
south of west. The south side line of Major Stevens's town 
ran south seventeen degrees west ; but the north side line ran 
south fifteen degrees west, while both side lines of New Bretton 
ran south seventeen degrees west. The i^esult was what might 
have been expected. The grantees and settlers, from a very 
early period until about 1816, were continually engaged in con- 
troversies in relation to the western boundaries of Boscawen, 
Salisbury, Andover, and New Chester, and the wedge-shaped 
gores between Boscawen and Salisbury and Salisbury and An- 
dover, in which the lines of one set of grantees overlapped the 
others. The region at that time and long before had been 
known as the Kearsarge region. The grants of Boscawen, 
Warner, Salisbury, Andover, and Perrystown had left a large 
tract of territory, which naturally was called Kearsarge Gore, 



KEARSARGE. 1 53 

from its shape. The last division in Salisbury, on the westerly 
end, was laid out in 1773. 

The records of Salisbury afford the following light in refer- 
ence to these controversies : 

" 4ly To see if you will vote to rais money to pay the commit- 
tee that was chosen to settle the boundaries and lines with other 
towns and the committee that shall be chosen. 

"Sept. 2, 1762." 

" 3^y Voted to chose a commitee to rectiefiee the bounds at 
the of said town voted to messure the north line to see if it is 
long annuft. 

"4ly Voted to chose three men for sd. commitee and if they 
shall so need to tak one more at the township. 
"November 7, 1763 [1762?]" 

" 2ly To see if they will vote down both the committees that 
are ale ready chosen for to pramblate the line round the town 
or vote which of them shall do the work. 

"Mar. 2, 1762." 

" 2ly Voted to chose a committee to joyn with any other 
committees that shall be chosen by other towns ajoyning to sd. 
Stevens town in settling the boundries and lines between sd. 
Stevens town & other towns. 

" 3ly Voted Deacon Elisha Sweet, Peter Sanborn, Esqr,, and 
Coll. Ebenezer Stevens are chosen a committee to settle the 
boundries and lines as before purposed with other town joyning 
to sd. Stevens town — &c. — 

"May 13, 1762." 

" Province of: ] 

New Hampr. : ) We the subscribers being chosen a committee 
by the proprietors of each township here after named to settle 
the boundaries & lines between Stevens town and New Briton 
(so called) have as follows viz we have began at a pine tree 
standing on a great rock in the bank of Pemigawasset river 
which is the boundary between each town as aforesaid running 
west about seventeen degrees south about nine miles to beach 
tree marked on the southerly side with letter S and on the 



154 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

northerly side with the letter B with many other marks thereon 
witness our hands 
" Stevens town 

" Dated October the first, 1762. Elisha Sweet 

Peter Sanborn 
Ebenr. Stevens 
Natha. Healey 
John Sanborn 
Jeremiah Lane " 
The stump of this beech tree is undoubtedly the one referred 
to by the legislative committee, in 1816, in their report estab- 
lishing the line between Kearsarge Gore and Salisbury. 

" sly To see what you will allow the committee pr. day that 
went to mesure the north line from Merimak river to the head 
and the south line of said town 
" Jany 26, 1764." 

"4ly Voted to give the committee that went to mesure the 
north line and south line of Stevens town four pounds old tenor 
pr. day. 

"Feb. 6, 1764." 

" 2ly To chose a committee to pramblat the lines with other 
towns that adjoyn to sd. Stevens town and settle the bounds of 
sd. township whare the bounds is not settled. 
" March 19, 1768." 

" 2ly Voted Ebenr Stevens Joshua Woodman Capt. John 
Webster are chosen a commitee to pramblate the lines with 
other towns and settel bounds whare they are not settled. 

"April 7, 1768." 

" 2ly To see what money the proprietors will rais to pay for 
building the bridge over Blackwater river and clear the Senter 
road. 

"Sept. I, 1768." 

"3ly To chose a commitee to run the line with New Alms- 
bury and settle the south-west bound of said Salisbury as that 
is not settled 

" May 12, 1770." 

" 7ly Voted the assessors be a committee to examine & de- 
sire the clerk to enter the votes & returns &c. in the proprietors 



KEARSARGE. I55 

book in order that the book may be removed another year to 
the town of Salisbury. If so voted that Ensign Gale Mr. Na- 
thaniel Maloon Joseph Been John Colings & Capt John Web- 
ster be a committee to run the line with New Almsbury and 
settle the bounds at the south west corner of Salisbury. 

"May 30, 1770." 

" 5thly To see if the proprietors will chuse a committee to 
settle the boundaries of said Salisbury with Col. Henry Gerrish 
who is impowered by the grantors to settle the same. 

" Dec. 22, 1780." 

" Sthly Voted to chuse a committee of three men to join with 
Col Henry Gerrish to perfix the boundaries at the western end 
of said Salisbury provided he comes with authority from the 
grantors to settle and perfix the same. 9thly Capt. John 
Webster, Dn. John Collins and Joseph Bean Esqr. chosen for 
the above committee. 

" lothly Voted to adjourn this meeting till the last Tuesday 
in August, to the house of Capt. Matthew Pettingill in the 
afternoon of sd. day. August 28th met on adjournment and 
voted to adjourn sd. meeting to the second Tuesday in October, 
next at the house of Capt. Matthew Pettengill at one o'clock in 
the afternoon of said accordingly sd. meeting is adjourned to 
ad. time & place. Tuesday 9th of October 1781, met on ad- 
joui'nment. 

" Voted to receive the report of the committee before chosen, 
which is as follows, (viz.) this may certify to the gentlemen 
proprietors of Salisbury that Col. Gerrish came to us with a 
power of attorney that we esteem sufficient to settle the bound- 
aries at the western end of the township of Salisbury, & as it 
appeareth to us that there is a mistake in the grantors of the 
charter of Salisbury & Andover interfering one upon the other 
& also a mistake in the grantees in laying out their lots beyond 
the limits of nine miles from Merrimack river ; we think it 
best to give up our claim to the land north of the seventeen de- 
grees on the noiih upon their confirming to us as far westerly 
as to take in all our land that is lotted, which we have encour- 
agement from sd. Gerrish upon a straight line. 

"October 9, 1781." 



156 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

"3. To see what methods the proprietors will take to settle 
the boundaries and lines at the westerly end of sd. township, 
"Jany. 17, 1801. 

" 2ndly. Voted to accept the report of the committee chosen 
the 5th of February last to ascertain the north corner bounds of 
said town, which report was verbally that a line beginning at 
the southwest corner bound of said town running north one 
degree west to Andover line be the head or west line of said 
town. 

" 3rdly Voted that John C. Gale inform Col. Henry Ger- 
rish who is agent for the joroprietors of the gore of the proceed- 
ings of this meeting. 

" 4thly Voted to adjourn this meeting to the first Monday in 
June next at 3 o'clock p. m. to meet at this place. 

"May 4, 1801." 

"Your committee report as follows — we have ascertained 
the northwest corner bounds of Salisbury by running from the 
southwest corner bounds of said town north one degree west 
between Salisbury and Kearsarge Gore. 

"May 28, 1801." 

On June i-i, 1753, the grantees of New Britain under an 
article " to receive the return of the committee chosen to lay 
out said tract of land and to chose a committee to make return 
of the plan of the laying out said tract of land to the grantors 
and to agree with the grantors when to have the lotts drawn, 
'voted' 4thly James Carrick, Amos Dwinell, Richard Smith 
as a committee * « * to return the plan of the above said 
tract of land as it is laid out to the grantors and to agree with 
said grantors when to have the lott drawn." 

This plan, so returned in i753 to the Masonian proprietary, 
was from a survey by Williambrown Clough. It showed the 
mountain wooded to the top, and says in a note, — "Cier Sarge, 
a mountain large, by ye Indens Cowissewaschook ! " This, 
with a change in spelling, is a restatement of what he had 
already set down a few years before, on a plan of Bakerstown, 
or Stephenstown. A copy of this plan, carefully compared 
with the original, is now in the town-house at Andover. 

There was a dispute as to whether Andover or New Chester 



KEARSARGE. 157- 

owned a region which was afterwards claimed by Kearsarge 
Gore, and now known as Eagle pond. At a meeting held 
May 17, 1763, action was taken under an article " to choose a 
committee to run out said township anew & number every lot 
agreeable to the plan formerly exhibited & accepted by the 
grantors, and also to settle the bounds betwixt said township 
and INew Chester." Two committees were chosen. The com- 
mittee to establish the lines between Andover and New Chester 
made their report, dated "' Boscowen June lo, 1763," to a meet- 
ing held September 5, 1763. The committee of five, chosen 
" to run out said township anew and bound and number every 
lot agreeable to the plan formerly exhibited and accepted by 
the grantors," made an elaborate report, " dated at Hampton 
Falls, Novembr. i8th, 1763," to the meeting held November 
21, 1763. In this report they recite at length their labors and 
difficulties, what they were able to ascertain in relation to the 
" number trees " and lines run out years before, and say that 
they " thought proper (as the southerly side line was not run 
out the first ten miles) to go first on said line before we go any 
farther here which we did ; and ran it out the full ten miles, 
spotting as we went after we left Stevens town to a spruce tree 
standing on Kiaserge mountain which tree we spotted for a 
corner bound and marked with sundry letters." The report 
was accepted, and the bills of the committee ordered to be 
paid. At the meeting on November 3, 1773, a committee was 
chosen " to join the selectmen of Salisbury if they see fit to per- 
ambulate the line between the said township of Salisbury and 
the township of New Brittain as formerly agreed upon run, 
spotted and bounded by a committee of said townships and 
return thereof made excepted and recorded." They also voted 
that the committee should make return within four weeks, and 
that they should be permitted to " hire a surveyor to perambu- 
late the line." 

On April 29, 1786, the perambulation of the line between 
the two towns was reported and recorded. 

On April 2, 1788, the selectmen reported as follows: "• Laid 
out by the subscribers in Andover, as follows, viz : begining 
at the road that was laid ourt by order of cort from Dartmoth 
Colledg to Boscawen a little above where John Rowe now 



158 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

lives at the parth that leads to Kiresarge Gore and following 
said parth where it is now cleared and trod over Blackwater 
river so called and as far as Aaron Selley's house three rods in 
•width to be a public highway forever." 

As we have already seen, the territory which embraced the 
tnountain proper, the Keai'sarge hills, river, ponds, and mead- 
ows on the south, and the Kearsarge hill, river, meadows, and 
falls on the west, was of a considerable extent. The limits 
must have been somewhat indefinite, like those of Dunstable 
and Penacook in Waldron's day; but, like each of them, this 
region must have covered not far from two hundred square 
miles. The grant of the townships about this mountain to 
which we have already referred narrowed these limits to Kear- 
sarge Gore. The residue of the plans and maps may be con- 
sidered in connection with tlie history of that Gore. 

Mitchell and Hazzen's map gives the mountain in Merrimack 
county in the proper place as " Kyasage Mt." A copy of 
this map is in the state-house. It was purchased in London for 
the late W. F. Goodwin and myself. Upon its face, among 
other things, appears the following: 

"Observations on which this map is grounded : " 

"New Hampshire from the surveys of Mitchell and Hazzen 
in 1750, especially the last." 

Line 44° 30' north " According to Hazzen's Survey, this Line 
about 30 Miles distant from Pigwakket R. cuts the East end of 
the White Hills." 

This map shows Pigwakket river and the " Sawokotuk" or 
" Sawko" river, and " Pigwakket Hills," mainly on the New 
Hampshire side of the line. 

On December 24, 1770, Governor VVentworth, without suc- 
cess, recommended the assembl}^ to accept the "offer" of 
" Capt. Holland the surveyor general of the sea cost of the 
northern district of America," "to survey as much of the prov- 
ince as can be done before the season permitts his surveying on 
the sea cost." 7 Prov. Pap. 264. 

On January 23, 1772, the governor, in pursuance of the 
royal command, "You shall likewise take care that a general 
plan be made of all our said province and of each county with 
the several plantations & fortifications on it, and that an exact 



KEARSARGE. 15^ 

map or maps thereof be transmitted to our commissioners for 
trade & plantation," charged the assembly to " make provisions 
for its execution which may be done this winter," and on Janu- 
ary 4, 1772, the assembly voted " that the message sent by the 
governor relative to the survey of this province proposed to be 
made by Capt. Holland be complied with," and voted to give 
him the sum of one hundred guineas. The surveys were made 
in 1773 and 1774, but the map was not published until March 
I, 1784, in London. This society possesses a copy of this map. 
Upon that map the Merrimack County mountain appears as 
"Kyar Sarga Mt., by the Indians Cowissewaschook." Whether 
Williambrown Clough was one of Holland's assistants does not 
as yet appear, but the internal evidence is strong that the name 
was taken from one of his plans. 

This was the first official map of the province. The Chat- 
ham-Bartlett mountain appears upon it without a name. This 
is strong evidence that neither Holland nor any of his assistants 
had any "information that it was known as ' Kiarsarge,'" or 
any other form of the word, in 1774, or even down to the pub- 
lication in 17S4. 

In 1791 Dr. Belknap gives both mountains as " Kyarsarge," 
but this is the first instance in which the Carroll County moun- 
tain is so termed. It is evident that Dr. Belknap got his infor- 
mation as late as July, 1784, when, with a party of seven, he 
visited the White hills. They left Dover on Jul}^ 20. Having 
passed through Eaton and Conway, they encamped at the foot 
of the mountains on July 23. On July 24, Dr. Cutler, Rev. 
Mr. Little, and Col. Whipple succeeded in ascending Mt. 
Washington, which they found buried in clouds ; but Belknap 
and others, after having gone part way, were obliged to give 
up. On July 27 Dr. Belknap preached in Whipple's barn to 
five or six families, at what was called " Mr. Whipple's plan- 
tation " — the first sermon ever preached there. This was at 
"Cherry mountain." He reached home July 31, 17S4. He 
says that he copied from a plan of Whipple's, who lived at 
what is now Jefferson ; but Belknap changed the spelling, for 
upon Whipple's sketch it is Kyasarge. This is the plan to 
which Belknap refers in his letter of August 19, 1784. Life of 
Belknap 102-104 ; 3 Belknap's History 37-40. 



l6o NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

It is noticeable that Belknap, in the same volume, gives the 
•census of Kearsarge Gore in 1790 as 103, and spells it " Ky- 
sarge," 

In 1775 Kearsarge Gore was granted by the Masonian pro- 
prietary to Jonas Minot, Matthew Thornton, and others. 3 
Moore's His. Col. 173 ; Genealogy of the Minot Family. 

Minot was the son of Samuel Minot, of Concord, Mass., one 
of the grantees of "Alexandria" proper and "Alexandria Ad- 
dition," now New London, and an extensive land-owner in 
New Hampshire. He died March 20, 1813, at the age of sev- 
enty-eight. 

The plan made by Henry Gerrish, who was always a prom- 
inent man, and for a quarter of a century the legal representa- 
tive of important interests in the Gore, is of" Kaysarge Gore," 
near " Kya Sarge." It also sets forth in a note that " Kyah 
Sarge mountain contains 1459 acres." The grant of April 7, 
1779, was of Kiersarge Gore. In 1781 the territory Kyah 
Sarge Gore was divided among the grantees by lot. 

The precise time when the Gore became entitled to town 
privileges has not yet been absolutely determined. It v^^as prob- 
ably as early as 1783. We know that the Gore at that time 
was assigned its share of the public burdens. 

In June, 1784^ the legislative journals show what towns and 
places were entitled to representatives, and when they were in 
fact represented, and by whom. On this list in one class ap- 
pear "New London, Andover, a??d Gore." Capt. Fi^ancis 
Walker represented Fishersfield, Perrystown, and Warner, as 
another class upon the same list. 

John Moftat died January 21, 1786. He was a land-owner 
in about thirty towns and places in New Hampshire, and 
owned Nos. 33, 43, and 48 of the hundred-acre lots in " Kyar- 
sarge Gore." Prior to his death, owing to his relations with 
Moftat, Whipple had become very familiar with these lands, 
and upon Moffat's death became directly interested. The pro- 
bate court ordered the sale of these lots. A schedule thereof 
is still in existence. That decree was appealed from, and 
finally affirmed by the superior court on the fourth Tuesday of 
April, 1789 ; and the final proceedings were had under that and 
the order of the probate court of May 20, 1789. Moffat's inter- 



KEARSARGE. l6l 

ests were largely identified with those of Minot. See Whipple- 
Moffat Papers. 

The act of June i6, 1791, included "Kearsarge" in Hills- 
borough county. 

The legislative journal of June 14, 1792, says, — " Upon read- 
ing and considering the petition of James Flanders, Esquire, in 
behalf of the inhabitants of Kyar Searge Gore, and the report 
of a committee thereon, and that the petitioners be heard 
thei"eon before the general court on the second Tuesday of their 
next session, and that in the meantime the petitioners cause 
that the selectmen of Salisbury, Andover and New London 
be served with a copy of petition and order of notice," &c. 

The act of December 27, 1792, says, — "And the companies 
in the towns of Boscawen, Salisbury, Andover, New London, 
and Kearsearge Gore, shall form a first battalion," &c. 

The legislative journal of June 13, 1793, shows that leave 
was granted to bring in a bill at the hearing upon the petition 
to disannex lots Nos. 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, and 25 from Ky- 
arsearge Gore, and to annex them to New London. 

See, also, proceedings of June 17, 1793, and upon the second 
reading of the bill ; and also of June iS, 1793. 
The act passed June 19, 1793. 

The journal for June 20, i793? shows a resolve instructing 
the selectmen of New London to add to the inventory of that 
town that of the lots disannexed from " Keasarge Goi"e." 

The journal of the house for Feb. 5, 1794, shows that the in- 
ventory of " Kearsearge Gore" " stand at £20-7-8, amount of 
valuation." 

On February 12, 1794, the house proceeded to consider the 
alterations made in the inventories by the senate, but " Kear- 
seai'ge Gore" was left "£20, 7, 8, as agreed to." 

On February 14, 1794, " the senate returned the vote, * * 
with information that they had concurred with the house on 
the town of * * * Kearsearge Gore." 

On February 17, i794i " the following vote came down from 
the honorable senate for concurrence ; Kearsarge Gore and 
Mason to stand as passed by the house." 

In the house, on December 26, 1794, a joint committee was 
filled " to consider of the petition of the selectmen of Kearsarge 
Gore." 



l62 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

The legislative journal of June 17, ^795' shows an act enti- 
tied "An act authorizing the collection of taxes in Kearsarge 
Gore." 

The senate journal of June 15, 1797' shows '' a vote for a 
committee to join such of the senate as they may appoint to 
consider the petitions from the towns of Sutton, New London, 
Bradford, and ' Kearsarge Gore.' " 

The senate journal of December 8, 1797, shows a resolve 
that " the selectmen or the major part of them at the charge of 
the town parish or place where they belong to, shall take an 
inventory," &c., naming among others "■ Keasarge Gora." 

The senate journal of December 21, 1797, shows that the res- 
olution for the taking of the new inventory, &c., be sent to the 
post-office at Concord, for " Keasearge Gore." 

The survey of " Kearsarge Gore" for Dr. Carrigan's map 
was made in 1805 by Ephraim Eastman, of Andover. 

Eastman was born in Deerfield, N. H., in 1768. Kearsarge 
was a familiar object to him almost from his babyhood. He 
died in the immediate vicinity of the mountain under whose 
shadow he had lived for more than half a century. He was a 
man of more than ordinary ability ; was a school-teacher in his 
younger days, and had considerable culture and refinement for 
his times, and was a practical surveyor from his boyhood 
almost to the time of his death. He was exceedingly familiar 
with the boundaries of townships, the disputes about them, 
their history and traditions. His plan shows, aside from the 
important portion of the Gore transferred to New London in 
1793, that its width, as claimed by that town, was between two 
and three miles at the narrowest point, about four miles wide 
in the centre, and between nine and ten miles in length, reck- 
oning from the extreme points. 

Wilmot was created June 18, 1807, and yet in 1810 the rem- 
nant of the Gore had one hundred and fifty-two inhabitants. 
Eastman's survey showed that there was a dispute as to the 
location of the boundary line between Salisbury and the 
"Gore, "as there had been for half a century. 

Other surveys were made for a like purpose. In 1805 and 
1806, Joshua Lane, long known as " Master Lane," surveyed the 
territory known as New Hampton, the region then known as 



KEARSARGE. 163 

New Chester, which included that portion of the present part 
of Wihnot known as New Canada, what is now Andover, 
Salisbury, Franklin, Webster, Boscawen, Canterbury, North- 
field, Tilton, and Sanbornton. 

Lane's plans are now in the state-house. His work speaks 
for itself. It needs no bush. He locates the mountain where 
it is, and gives it its proper name. Lane had exceptional op- 
portunities for knowing the facts. He came from a line of sur- 
veyors who probably, from their kinship with the dominant 
and perhaps controlling spirits of the early proprietors, had 
been employed by them in the surveys of New Britain from the 
earliest period. 

On April i, 1811, under a proper article in the warrant, the 
town of Salisbury " voted that Andrew Bowers, Esq., & Lieut. 
Benjamin Pettengill, of said Salisbury, be a committee to attend 
in the half of the proprietors of said town to the petition of Mr. 
Abner Watkins, on the first Tuesday of the next session of the 
general court." Watkins was then, as he had been for a long 
time, one of the leading citizens of the Gore. 

On May iS, 181 1, under articles "to see if the town will 
agree to make any defence against Abram Watkins respecting 
the line between this town and Kearsarge Goar," and " to 
see what method the town will take to make such defence if 
they should think proper to make any," Salisbury voted that 
" Col. John E. Gale be agent for the town of Salisbury to act 
with a committee of the proprietors of said town against Abner 
Watkins of ' Kearsarge Goar,' respecting his petition to the 
genl. court for an alteration of the jurisdictional line between 
said Salisbury and said Goar." 

On September 33, 1815, under an article "to see what 
method or order the town shall take, respecting the line be- 
tween the said town of Salisbury and Keiarsarge Gore which 
line is now submitted to a committee chosen by the general 
court of this state," the town of Salisbury voted " to take the 
requisite steps to protect their interests." 

On May 18, 1816, under an article "to see what the town 

will do in regard to the report of the committee of the general 

court relating to the line between this town and Kearsarge 

Gore, which report is to be made at the next session of the gen- 

voL. IX. 13 



164 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

eral court," the town chose "Andrew Bowers, Esquire, agent 
for the town to act with the representative at the general court, 
in remonstrating against the acceptance of the report of a com- 
mittee to establish a line between this town and Kiarsarge 
Gore, and attend to all other business respecting said line which 
they shall judge necessary for the benefit of the town." 

The senate journal of June 25, 1816, shows " a vote granting 
a day of hearing on the petition of Jonathan Watkins and oth- 
ers, praying that his land in Kearsarge Gore be annexed to the 
town of Warner." 

On June 26, 1S16, the same journal gives the report of the 
legislative committee, cutting off one hundred and eighty-four 
rods claimed by Salisbury next to the Gore, and giving Salis- 
bury two hundred and eighteen rods west of the bound estab- 
lished in 1762. 

" The committee appointed at the last session, to examine 
and establish the disputed line between the towns of Salisbury 
and Kearsarge Gore, made the following report — 

" 'The within named committee, having notified the select- 
men of Salisbury and Kearsarge Gore, met and fully heard 
them ; and that in their opinion the line hereafter discribed is 
the true division and ought to be established as the line of juris- 
diction between said towns, viz. — beginning at a large rock on 
the westerly side of the highway on Warner line, opposite 
Thaddeus Hardy's house ; thence running north five degrees 
east about five miles to a beach stump, at the northerly end of 
William Pingree's land, formerly John Wentworth's thirty acre 
lot numbered fifty-four, by Andover line, it being about two 
I'ods southwesterly from the bound between land of Jonathan 
Brown and land of Moses Brown in said Andover, which stump 
was heretofore known by the name of the middle northwest 
corner bound of Salisbur}', and is situate one hundred and eighty- 
four rods easterly of the birch tree entwining a spruce tree which 
Salisbury claims as their northwest corner bound ; and two 
hundred and eighteen rods westerly of the beach which the pro- 
prietors of Salisbury marked for their first north west corner 
bound, which line was satisfactorily proved to the committee 
to have been the true westerly line of Salisbury, at the time of 
its incorporation. — And they further report, determine and 



KEARSARGE. iS^^ 

award that the town of Salisbury pay for the services of the 
committee, their assistants and expenses, taxed at fifty-one dol- 
lars. 

'John Osgood Ballard, 

' Joseph Bartlett, 

'John Smith.'" 

A vote accepting said report was brought up, read, and con- 
curred. Senate Journal, June 26, 1816. 

The following petition, understood to be the work of that legal 
antiquary, Moses Eastman, Esq., for years the clerk of court, 
and the opinion of that eminent lawyer, Parker Noyes, upon 
the effect of the legislative line, are worthy of special note : 

"To the Honorable the Senate & House of Representatives 
of the State of New Hampshire in Getieral Court con- 
vened : 

"Humbly show the subscribers, inhabitants of the town of 
Salisbury in the county of Hillsborough that we are owners of 
different lots of land in that part of said Salisbury which adjoins 
Kearsarge Gore, which lots have ever, when taxed, been taxed 
in Salisbury & in no other town or place from the first settle- 
ment of the country to this day. 

" We have been informed that the report of a committee ap- 
pointed by the general court to establish a line of jurisdiction 
between Salisbury & Kearsarge Gore was at the last June ses- 
sion received & accepted by the general court which report 
drew a new line of jurisdiction, whereby if that line be estab- 
lished the aforesaid lands will be transferred to the jurisdiction 
of & be liable to be taxed in Kearsarge Gore, which will occa- 
sion to us great inconvenience. 

" With all due respect for the respectable gentlemen who 
composed that committee, we think the report was made from 
an imperfect view of the subject; & that if its merits had been 
fully laid open to the view of the general court, the report would 
not have been accepted. 

" Wherefore, we pray that the vote accepting the said report 
may be reconsidered or that such order may be taken on the 
subject as the wisdom of the general court shall think the case 
requires. 



1 66 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

" To show that our opinion of that report is not without foun- 
dation, we beg leave to submit the following facts & remarks. 

" The proprietary grant of the tract of land now called Salis- 
bur}', formerly called Stevenstown, was made in the year 1749 
by the Masonian proprietors who were at the same time the 
owners of the tract of land called Kearsarge Gore. 

"The grantees of Stevenstown, soon after the grant, divided 
part & only part of the land granted to them into lots, leaving 
a considerable tract undivided. 

"In the year 1773 they laid out the thirty acre lots at the 
west end of the grant, adjoining Kearsarge Gore and then ran, 
it is presumed for the first time, the west end line of their grant, 
& marked trees to show the line. 

"The thirty acre lots laid out in 1773 up to this line were 
immediately after drawn among the grantees, & some of the 
lots were drawn to the reserved rights of the grantors, the 
Masonian proprietors, who have ever since claimed & held 
those lots accordingly. 

" It is believed that the Masonian proprietors by taking those 
lots in 1773 & claiming & holding them ever since, in severalty 
as their reserved right in the grant of Steventown did then 
recognize the right of the proprietors of Steventown to the land 
as far westward as that line. 

"At that time Kearsarge Gore was held by the Masonian 
proprietors in common ; & was not laid out into lots until 1782. 
In the year 1782 Col. Henry Gerish as the agent & by the di- 
rection of the Masonian proprietors, surveyed and laid out into 
lots the tract of land called Kearsarge Gore, & bounded on the 
aforesaid line the lots adjoining Salisbury. The survey & 
plan of the lots thus made by Gerish, was adopted by the Ma- 
sonian proprietors, & has ever since been recognized by them. 

" At a subsequent period since question being made respect- 
ing the bounds between Salisbury & Kearsarge Gore the Ma- 
sonian proprietors appointed the said Henry Gerish their agent, 
to join with a committee of the proprietors of Salisbury to settle 
the question & determine the proprietary line between Salisbury 
& Kearsarge Gore. 

" In the year iSoi the said Gerish on the part of the Mason- 
ians, & the said committee of the proprietors of Salisbury went 



KEARSARGE. I 67 

together to the bound which has ever been known & recognized 
as the south west corner bound of Salisbury, & from thence ran 
northward the course directed by the Masonians & on the afore- 
said line which was run & marked in 1773 to the north line of 
Salisbury & there made a bound between Salisbury & Kear- 
sarge Gore. 

" Thus the aforesaid line run in 1773 was recognized by the 
Masonian proprietors in 1773 & in 17S2 & again in 1801 was 
settled & confirmed by the parties. 

"The limits of the grant from the Masonian proprietors, 
being thus settled by those who had the right so to do, it is 
believed that the proprietors of Salisbury & of Kearsarge Gore, 
are both bound thereby. 

" The description of the town of Salisbury in the act of incor- 
poration is the same as in the Masonian grant & was probably 
copied from it. 

"The proprietors of Salisbury have ever since claimed & 
held the land westward to the aforesaid line run in 1773 & the 
town of Salisbury has ever held jurisdiction to the same line. 

" The aforesaid report takes from Salisbury a tract of land of 
a triangular form four miles in length one hundred & eighty- 
four rods wide at the north end, running to a point at the south 
& lying east of the aforesaid line. 

"The inconvenience which will be the consequence of cut- 
ting the lots by this new line of jurisdiction, & transferring part 
of a lot to Kearsarge Gore & leaving part in Salisbury, we trust 
will be deemed a sufficient apology for this our request. 

"Novr. 1816. Wd. Elisabeth Straw. 

James B. Straw 
Stephen S. Straw 
Samuel Eaton 
Wm. Pingry 
James Johnson 
Thomas Chase 
Ebenr. Johnson 
Moses Greeley " 

This had upon the back the following indorsement : 



1 68 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

"A petition of a number of the inhabitants of Salisbury pray- 
ing for a reconsideration of a vote establishing the jurisdictional 
line between the towns of Salisbury & Kearsarge Gore." 

OPINION OF PARKER NOYES. 

" QUESTIONS BY COMMITTEE OF PROPS. OF SALISBURY 
ANSWERED. 

BENJ. LITTLE ) 

& VESQRS. 

A. BOWERS ) 

"^ttestion i . Do Salisbury by assuming a line beyond what 
their charter contained give them a right to the soil? 

"A?iswer. If the proprietors of Salisbury in making the 
bounds of their grant did go beyond the exact measure men- 
tioned in the grant, — and the grantors, knowing the same, 
acquiesced for a time long enough to gain title by possession, 
or in any way recognized those bounds, as bounds, the proprie- 
tors of Salisbury will hold to those bounds. 

" If the grantors appointed an agent with powers to rzin the 
line & jix the bounds^ — & he with the props, of Salisbury did 
run the line & fix the bounds, the line & bounds so made are 
conclusive on both parties, unless the agent exceeded his 
powers. 

" The neglect of the agent to report his doings to his employ- 
ers, or their neglect to record the same will not vacate what 
was done ; but the same may be proved by the testimony of 
witnesses. 

"If the props, of the Gore seeing the bounds which Salis- 
bury had made to their grant, and the occupation of the land to 
those bounds ; neglected for more than 30 years to make an 
enti-y on the land, and have brought no action to try the title, it 
is believed that such neglect will amount to such an acquies- 
cence as will put an end to the claim of the props, of the Gore. 

" Question 2nd. Will the props, of the Gore hold the land 
west of the line as lately established by the general court's 
committee "^ 

'"'•Answe?'. The doings of that committee have no effect on 
the right of soil. They have no more effect on the question 



KEARSARGE. I 69 

between the two parties than the flying of a bird thro, the air 
would have. 

" The gen. court have not power, & could not give power to 
their committee, to determine the bounds of the land, & thereby 
bind the two sets of proprietors in respect of the right of soil. 

" The right of soil remains & ever vs'ill remain precisely the 
same as if that committee had never been appointed. 

"The proprietoj-s of Salisbury are one body. The toivn 
of Salisbury as a corporation is another. The rights of these 
two bodies are as distinct, as the rights of any two persons 
can be. 

"• The only effect that the doings of that committee can have, 
if they have even so much^ is to determine the line of the juris- 
diction of the town of Salisbury as a corporation. 

" The right of the props, of Salisbury to the soil has no con- 
nection with, nor dependence on, the line of jurisdiction which 
the gen. court has assigned or may assign to the town of Salis- 
bury. 

"'May6, 181S. PARKER NOYES." 

"Salisbury, May 8, iSiS. 
'•'•A. Bozvers^ Esq. 

" Sir I have endeavored to answer the questions put by the 
committee of the props, of Salisbury & by Mr. Pettingill & 
you. 

" If the answers are not sufficiently explicit, I will at any 
time add anything I can to make them more so. 

" I am respectfully your obedt servant, 

" PARKER NOYES." 

This opinion is contained in a letter directed on the back to 
"Andrew Bowers, Esq., Salisbury." 

The senate journal of June 20, 1S17, shows that the inhabi- 
tants of " Kearsarge Gore," praying to be annexed to Warner, 
were granted a hearing, to be had on the first Tuesday of the 
next session of the general court, and the selectmen of Warner 
were to be served with a notice thereof. 

On June 13, 1818, "Kearsarge Gore" was annexed to the 
town of Warner. 



170 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

It is well known to those who saw the books in the hands of 
Watkins and others at an early day that there was an ancient 
plan of the Gore and two volumes of records. For this Col. 
John A. Hardy, long a prominent man in the Gore, is the 
abundant authority. These were in existence at a compara- 
tively recent period, and may be now. The only record which 
has been found commences with a call for a meeting dated 
August I, 1794, by James Flanders, a justice of the peace, which 
recited that " application being made to me by a number of the 
inhabitants of Kearsarge Gore in said county, getting forth that 
they labored under many difficultys, on account of not having 
a legal meeting to appoint public officers, praying that a war- 
rant might issue forth at purpos these are," &c. 

The application, as shown by this warrant, was similar to 
those in other towns where the organization had failed by neg- 
lect to call a meeting, or otherwise. The records from this 
time forth are regular, and the name is invariably spelled 
"Kearsarge Gore." 

Carrigain's map gives, in Merrimack county, " Kearsarge 
Mt." and " Kearsarge Gore," with its census, in 1810, 152; 
and in Carroll count}', " Pigwacket formerly Kiarsarge." 

This is the first official map of the state, and, taking into con- 
sideration the facilities then to be had, was a work of great 
labor, difficulty, and responsibility. It began in 1806, and was 
completed in 1816. The legislature did not require Carri- 
gain, if some highway or other surveyor located San Fran- 
cisco at Portsmouth or Mt. Diablo at Pigwacket, to treat the 
lie as historic truth. It made him a general in command, not 
a subaltern. 

It was but natural that an assault by innuendo and insinua- 
tions upon Carrigain, his map, and the state authorities who 
selected him and gave him their confidence and support, should 
be made in aid of an attempt to repeal history. Carrigain may 
have had his failings, flowing from his social nature — " Let 
him that is without sin cast the first stone" — but the fact re- 
mains, that he was selected, by tliose who knew him best and 
were the most competent to judge, as the fittest man for such a 
difficult and delicate task ; and, amid religious contentions and 
the tempest of political changes, he was continued at his post 



KEARSARGE. I'jl 

under Govs. John Langdon, Jeremiah Smith, John Taylor 
Gihnan, and William Plumer. 

In 1816, a legislative committee reported " that the said Car- 
rigain has completed the map of New Hampshire with great 
accuracy, and in a style of superior elegance." Governor 
Plumer, in his message of June 5, 1817, says, — "As Mr. Cai"- 
rigain acting under the authority of the legislature has recently 
furnished the state at great expense with a map of New Hamp- 
shire which is not only elegant but splendid, permit me to sug- 
gest for your inquiry whether we have made him such a com- 
pensation as is adequate to his services and expenditures ; or 
such as will entitle us in the language of the constitution to be 
considered as the patrons of science and the useful arts. From 
a careful investigation of the subject^ I think it my duty to 
recommend the case to your favorable consideration." 

The committee to whom this recommendation was referred 
made an elaborate and exhaustive report in favor of Carrigain, 
and the result was, the legislature unanimously adopted a reso- 
lution in favor of Carrigain, indorsing the " map" as one that 
" appears to be executed with accuracy and much elegance." 

The governor whose recommendation was thus endorsed by 
the legislative department, was the same "unerring judge of 
the heads and hearts of men," to use the language of an emi- 
nent attorney-general of this state, who put Levi Woodbury 
upon the bench of our highest court. 

Carrigain's map needs no higher or more authoritative com- 
mendation. 

From the evidence thus far, the inevitable conclusions are : 

I. That between the years 1638 and 1667 (besides the infor- 
mation derived from Indians, Indian traders, and scouts), sur- 
vey parties with guides and artists, under the authority of the 
colony of Massachusetts Bay, visited the region now known as 
the head of the Merrimack river, for the purpose of ascertain- 
ing the northerly running of that river, and the " northernmost" 
boundaries of the patent of that colony ; that the data for the 
Gardner Plat was gathered in this way : that Endicott's tree on 
the Pemigewasset was established as the initial point through 
which the line of that patent ran, and was " commonly known " 
at some time prior to 1767 ; and that the Gardner Plat, upon 



172 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

which the mountain "Carasaga" (which we call Kearsarge), 
with the head of the Merrimack, and the forks of the Winni- 
piseogee and Pemigewasset, appear relatively in their proper 
places, was prepared before 1667. 

2. That more than a hundred and fifty years ago, the region 
westerly from the head of the Merrimack, northerly from the 
Uncanoonocks, easterly from Monadnock, was the haunt of the 
Indians on the war-path, and of their pursuers. 

3. That for a long time, commencing about one hundred and 
fift}' years ago, the region about the Kearsarge mountain and 
hills was called Kearsarge. 

4. That commencing at about the same time, the range of 
bills beginning near what is now Webster, and running north- 
erly for miles, was known as the Kearsarge hills. 

5. That at least a hundred and thirty years ago, the range in 
Sutton running westerly from the notch-pointed hill or moun- 
tain was known as Kearsarge hill, and called such in official 
records. 

6. That more than a hundred and thirty years ago, the stream 
south-east of the mountain was known as " Kiah [Currier] 
Sarge " river. 

7. That at least one hundred and eighteen years ago, the 
stream which pours from New London through Sutton south 
was known by the proprietary in Haverhill, Mass., and in 
Plaistow in this state, and in their vicinity, as "Key a Sargg 
river." 

8. That after the grants of what is now substantially Warner, 
Webster, Salisbury, Andover, and Sutton, and the partial set- 
tlement of some of them, a township was left which included 
the mountain proper and some portion of the hills, and took 
from its shape the name of " Kearsarge Gore ; " that as such it 
was granted by the Masonian proprietary in 1775 ; that as early 
as 1783 it was charged with its share of the public burdens, 
and about that time became by law entitled to town privileges 
— in a word, was a town, and so continued, notwithstanding the 
dismemberment by which a valuable portion was annexed to 
New London in 1793. and by the creation of Wilmot in 1S07, 
until it was absorbed by Warner in 1818. 

9. That at most until August, 1784, and, so far as any map, 



KEARSARGE. 1 73 

plan, or any other public document is concerned, until the pub- 
lication of Belknap's History in 1791, no other region was ever 
known as Kearsarge, no other hill or hills as Kearsarge, no 
other brooks, streams, ponds, lakes, or rivers as Kearsarge : no 
other mountain was anywhere known as Kearsarge, and no 
other town or place has ever borne that name. 

10. That the name Kearsarge, however spelled, has belonged 
as much to the Merrimack county mountain as the Winnipiseo- 
gee to that river and lake, the Massabesic to that pond or lake, 
the Amoskeag to the falls, or the Uncanoonocks to the hills 
bearing that name, and has for more tha7t two hundred 
years. 

We now come to the mountain in Carroll county. The name 
ascribed to it by Dr. Belknap, whether rightly or wrongly, 
was the same by which the region, the hills, the rivers, and 
the mountain in Merrimack county had long been known, and 
must have originally had the same meaning. 

The question whether the name so applied to the Chatham 
peak was an original, or in some sense a transferred local one, 
must be determined by the weight of probabilities. Perhaps 
we may best summarize the facts, and consider the question in 
the following order : 

1. There is no evidence that the Chatham mountain was ever 
known or called by a name having any resemblance to Kear- 
sarge before 1784. If that was its true name, no reason can be 
suggested why it should not have been so called prior to that 
time. Neither the Masonian nor any other grant, the curve 
line nor any other, prevented the Indians who had lived about 
it, or their prisoners, or the French, or the trappers, scouts, 
guides, or Indian traders, from calling that mountain Kearsarge, 
or from its being known as such from 1643 to 17S4, — a period 
of nearly one hundred and fifty years ; while the presumption 
of fact is, that if this name belonged to it, some of these or 
some one else would have fovmd it out in that time. 

2. Putting the matter in the strongest light for that mountain, 
it had " no name " for generations after the one in Merrimack 
possessed the name by which it was commonly known. 

3. Not a particle of evidence has yet been produced or even 



I74 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

suggested, which aftbrds the slightest reason why the Indians 
or any one else should have christened the Chatham peak Kear- 
sarge, unless the name was borrowed without leave from Mer- 
rimack county. 

4. There is no pretence that this name was ever applied to 
the hills, the rivers, or the region about this Chatham moun- 
tain. If it was an original name there as much as in Merri- 
mack county, why was it not applied to these, as in Merri- 
mack county.'' It certainly could not have been because there 
were not hills, brooks, rivers, falls, and intervales enough for 
that purpose in the vicinity of the Carroll county mountain. 

5. Whether the Chatham mountain, prior to 17S4, was name- 
less, or known as Pequawkett, or Pigwacket, is entirely imma- 
terial. The settlements in the Chatham, Brownfield, Conway, 
and Fryeburg region commenced in the vicinity of i765-'7o. 
The settlers were chiefly from Concord, Boscawen, Salisbury, 
and Andover. They were the people with whom the Warner 
mountain was a daily weather-gauge and a household word,' 
" a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night," in their little 
world. Every farmer and laborer in the whole region for 
miles to the eastward of the Merrimack county mountain, when 
he rose in the morning, looked first for " the storm-signal," the 
" cap" on " Old Kearsarge." When the old settlers left it for 
their new fields, they left, as it were, an endeared member of 
the family behind them. 

When Daniel Webster went to the Pigwacket region, he 
found himself surrounded by his father's old comrades, neigh- 
bors, and friends. Dr. Emery, the first physician of Fryeburg, 
was a brother of the one who has long slept his last sleep near 
his old home in Andover, where in his lifetime he daily drank 
in one of the most magnificent views that the mountain affords. 

In balancing the probabilities, we find in the one scale-blank 
nothing, and in the other, to put it mildly, every weighty prob- 
ability that these settlers carried with them both the memory 
and the name of their old favorite, and that they applied it to 
one of the most prominent mountains in the vicinity of their 
new homes ; and that Dr. Belknap, aided perhaps by Whip- 
ple, owing to his associations and interests in Kearsarge Gore 
and the region of the Merrimack county mountain, gave it the 



KEARSARGE. 



175 



local name by which the people from Merrimacli county had 
begun to call it. 

6. No one had the right to take the name of the hills, rivers, 
mountain, and region in Merrimack county, and bestow it upon 
a nameless mountain, or upon Pigwacket or any other in Car- 
roll county, or to blot from the map the name of Pigwacket, if 
it belonged to the Chatham mountain. 

The first of our great chief-justices once said, in discussing a 
memorable issue, " If there is anything which seems peculiarly 
a man's own, it is his name." Why should not this principle 
apply to the great geographical landmarks of this state? 

The ethics of this society ought not to fall below those which 
prevail in the courts. 

It is urged by those who would appropriate the old and hon- 
ored Merrimack county name to the Chatham peak, that the 
latter was never Pigwacket. Let us see. 

1. It is said that the Indians had no proper names ; that every 
word was complete and expressive in itself; and that Pigwacket 
was an Indian word. What of it? Why had not the Indians 
the same right to give a name to a nameless hill, plain, inter- 
vale, river, mountain, region, or any other locality, if they saw 
fit, as the white man? 

2. But it is said that this word, or some other that looks like 
it or sounds like it, or one that can be made up out of pieces of 
other words and squeezed into shape until it resembles it, 
means " level," " open land," " where said open land is suita- 
ble for cultivation." The Pigwacket Indians may have been 
good farmers two hundred years ago. We know they farmed 
the game from the woods, the fish out of the rivers, and the 
scalps from the heads of the white men. That they had so far 
progressed as to have agricultural societies, colleges, and walled 
towns, we have not as yet learned. Who knows at this day 
whether the Salisbury and Sutton "level," "open lands" 
" suitable for cultivation," gave the name to the rivers, hills, 
and region, or the mountain to them? 

Of what consequence is it whether these lands or the Pequaw- 
ket tribe gave their name to the mountain, or the mountain to 
them ? 

If this argument has any weight, it is to show that the proper 



176 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

name of the Salisbury and Sutton intervales was Pigwacket, 
instead of Kearsarge. 

3. It is said, too, that the Pigwacket was " a circumscribed 
position," the " Boston," " Concord," or " Portsmouth " of the 
Pequawkett tribe. This is directly in the teeth of fact, Indian 
custom, and tradition, as every man knows. They had neither 
cities nor towns in our sense, or in any just sense of the term. 

Tribes were not riveted to particular spots by a mysterious 
and attractive force, like that of Sinbad's loadstone, nor were 
they restricted to specified and definite limits. Their bound- 
aries, except so far as limited by water-courses, were loose and 
indefinite. They changed their lodges from time to time and 
from place to place, as convenience served. In general, no tribe 
was limited to "some particular village." They spread over 
the indefinite regions which belonged to the tribe, and that was 
known as the region, or country, or territory of the Iroquois 
confederation, or of the Mohawk, or other tribe, as the case 
mio"ht be. No good reason can be given why one I'ule should 
be applied to Pigwacket, and another to Dunstable, Penacook, 
or Kearsarge ; and few things are more preposterous than the 
theory that any of these terms applied to one side of a river and 
not to the other. 

The Chatham, Conway, Fryeburg, and Brownfield region 
was early known as the home of the " powerful Pequawketts." 
In 1741, Bryant found both "the Pigwacket plain or intervale 
land, and also Pigwacket river." In 1750, the " Pigwakket 
hills" were laid down by Mitchell and Hazzen on their map. 
On September 30, 1 765, Conway, six miles square, was granted. 
It was described as "at a place called Pigwacket." On July 
7, 1776, committees of the inhabitants of Conway, Fryeburg, 
and Brownfield petitioned the legislature of New Hampshire 
for aid, setting forth that "the said new plantations consist of 
about one hundred and thirty families, situated at a place called 
Pigwacket upon Saco river." 

We have already seen from whence the people came who 
settled these towns. We know that they regarded the name as 
applying to an indefinite region, one not " circumscribed" by 
precise or narrow lines or definite boundaries. It is impossible 
to reconcile the fact that this name was applied alike to the 



KEARSARGE. 



177 



hills, rivers, intervales, plain, and the extensive territory re- 
ferred to, with the theory that the word applies alone to 
"level," "open land suitable for cultivation," or that it was 
restricted to Fryeburg village, or to one side of the river. 
Great farmers as these Indians may have been, we have no evi- 
dence that Conway is or ever was in name, or exists within 
the circumscribed limits of, Fryeburg village, or that the Ind- 
ians planted their corn in the river, or that the Pigwacket or any 
other hills in that region were either level or intervales. 

Captain Willard says that when " campt on ye top of Wan- 
nadnack mountain," he " discovered 26 pounds," and " saw 
Pigwacket lying one point from sd. mountain and Cusagee 
mountain, and Winnepeseockey laying north east of said Wan- 
nadnack." 

Great labor has been expended, research has been exhausted, 
and great ingenuity has been displayed, in the attempt to im- 
peach the testimony of this most important and responsible wit- 
ness. 

That the Warner Kearsarge is in full view from the top of 
Monadnock can be attested by hundreds, and perhaps thou- 
sands : hence we have of late the politic concession that Cap- 
tain Willard could have seen Kearsarge if he wished. 

It is conceded, also, that he could not have seen Pigwacket 
plain, river, or intervales, or Stark, or any other hills in Maine 
which it is now claimed were, later in 1725, known as the Pig- 
wacket hills; and there is no suggestion even from any source 
that any other mountain in that region was then or ever since 
known as Pigwacket, or that Willard referred to any mountain 
in that region, unless he did to the Chatham mountain, or that 
he did not see that, if he actually saw anything there. This 
reduces the issue to a single point. He says he saw it. Did 
he tell the truth .? 

The alleged facts from which it is inferred he did not, may be 
considered in the following order : 

I. That Willard had never been to the White Mountains. 
This is the charge. The inference sought to be drawn is, that 
because he had never been there he knew nothing about the 
region, and therefore could not distinguish and identify one 
mountain from anotlier. If such evidence exists, it should have 
been produced. 



178 NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

Under the date of 1725 Dr. Belknap says, — " New Hamp- 
shire did not suffer so much as in former wars * * * partly 
by reason of the success of the ranging parties, who constantly 
traversed as far northward as the White Mountains." 2 Belk, 
Hist. 66. 

This state of things, in consequence of the wars and the ag- 
gressive movements of Massachusetts, which recommenced in 
earnest as early as 1716, continued for nearly half a century. 
These rangers, surveyors, and Indian fighters made, as it were, 
a highway from Dunstable, Monadnock, and the sea-coast, up 
the valleys of the Merrimack, Pemigewasset, and VVinnipiseo- 

But whether he had been there or not is entirely immaterial. 
Willard, like other commanders of important expeditions, usu- 
ally took with him his guides and interpreters, generally friendly 
Indians familiar with the country. We know that he had them 
with him about a month after the time when he was on Mo- 
nadnock. They could point out the mountains, and give the 
names by which they were known to them. 

2. That so far as was then known, no name had been applied 
to the Chatham mountain. This is begging the question at 
issue, and is based entirely upon an assertion contrary to the 
weight of the internal evidence. 

3. That if he had known it familiarly as Pigwacket, he could 
not have seen it either through his instrument or otherwise, 
because it was in the haze of a summer day, and a hundred 
miles distant. 

This is a string of assumptions. There is not a particle of 
evidence which has any tendency to show that either Willard's 
eyesight, or his instrument, or the day, was hazy, and as to the 
distance, the evidence is the other way. The claim that the 
Chatham peak and Monadnock cannot be seen from each other 
is, to those who are familiar with both, one of the most prepos- 
terous fables ever put on record. 

It is true that no one can see Monadnock from the other 
every day or every hour in the year. That is true as resj^ects 
Mt. Washington, which is about twenty miles distant. The 
writer has had as fine a view of Mt. Washington from the top 
of the Chatham peak as any man can desire, and in five min- 



KEARSARGE. 1 79 

utes has lost it for an hour. He has also found it impossible at 
times to make out either Lovell's mountain or the Merrimack 
county Kearsarge from the summit of Monadnock ; but that 
these "two mountains can be and have been seen from each other 
distinctly by the naked eye in any reasonably clear day, is as 
certain as it is that the sun shines, as is proved by the concur- 
rent testimony of those most familiar with both mountains. 

For all practical purposes, a viaduct runs direct from Mo- 
nadnock to the Chatham mountain. Few things could be far- 
ther from the truth than to say that Red hill, or Ossipee, or any 
other mountain obstructs the view. This is perfectly obvious 
to any one who has taken a view from the top of either moun- 
tain, as well as from the raised map in the state-house. 

4. That when he said he saw Pigwacket, he meant that he 
neither saw that at all nor any other point, but that he was lay- 
ing a course with his instrument to a place where he had never 
been, which it was utterly impossible for him to see, and of 
whose locality he was ignorant. Such a proposition is too ab- 
surd for comment or answer. 

Great responsibilities had been placed upon Capt. Willard. 
His duties were arduous and perilous in the extreme. He was 
sent to find out facts, and report them,— not to indulge in fancy, 
or to give loose reins to a poetic imagination. His was a daily 
diary, a journal of what he heard and what he saw. It con- 
tains a mass of prosaic details. It shows in every sentence the 
watchful eye, and the cool, practical, and matter of fact char- 
acter of the foremost of the Indian rangers. It shows, too, 
everywhere, a broad but natural line of demarcation between 
the evidence of his own eyesight, what was reported by others, 
and what was supposed or imagined. Thus he " marched " in 
a certain direction, " corsed " certain streams, " campt" in cer- 
tain places, " came to" certain '' pounds," " discovered" cer- 
tain other " pounds ; " but he recites what the scouts " found," 

that they " found two wigwams made in June or July as we 

suppose;" that "we found several old signs" " where y'b they 
camped when they killed the people at Rutland as ive imag- 
ine" Few men, at this day even, mark these distinctions with 
such precision and exactness. 

There is no suggestion even that Willard, when he says he 

VOL. IX. 14 



l8o NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

" corsed several branches of Miller's river," " came to a pound 
which runs into Contoocook river," " campt at Pwewunseum 
pound," '' campt on ye top of Wannadnack," " discovered 26 
pounds," " found several old signs," " marched down ye wast 
side Wannadnack," " corsed 3 streams that run into Contoo- 
cook," "found two wigwams," and " came to a streame that 
run into Mermack," did not write down the exact facts, nor 
that he did not see with his own eyes what he said he " found," 
or " discovered," nor that the same truthfulness does not char- 
acterize everj'thing which precedes what is said about Pig- 
wacket, from the beginning to the end of this expedition. It 
must be conceded that he knew the difference between moun- 
tains and ponds, between rivers or streams and rock or earth ; 
that he knew the top from the base ; that in some way he knew 
the names of these rivers, ponds, and the like, and of the moun- 
tain from which he took his observations, and the Warner 
Kearsarge as well. 

But the logic of those who seek to justify at the same time 
the piracy of one name and the vandalism of annihilating 
another is, that when Willard came to the most terse and posi- 
tive statement in his journal, to wit, that he " saw Pigwacket," 
his capacity or disposition to speak the truth suddenly ceased ; 
and that when he said he '■'■ saw" certain landmarks objective 
and distinctive, he neither saw them nor knew their names, 
and di'ew upon his imagination for their locality. 

The audacity of this proposition is softened by the tacit con- 
cession that the instant he passed the clause in question, the 
stream of truth resumed its normal course in Willard's brain, 
and thenceforward with full banks flowed on to the end. 

The argument was born of the necessities of the case, and its 
application from the patent line as assumed on Dr. Belknap's 
map. 

It is the deliberate and decided conviction of two members of 
this committee and of Dr. Bouton, that Captain Willard not 
only had the capacity and disposition to speak the truth, but 
that he did so. 

We recommend the adoption of the following preamble and 
resolutions, prepared by and in the handwriting of Dr. Bouton, 
the late chairman of this committee : 



KEARSARGE. 



l8l 



Whereas, of two mountains in the state of New Hampshire called 
by the name of Kearsarge or Kiarsarge, the question has arisen to 
which the name more properly belongs ; and whereas the judgment of 
the New Hampshire Historical Society has been requested on the sub- 
ject ; — therefore, — 

Resolved, (1) That, after a full and impartial examination of historical 
evidence, this society finds that the mountain called by said name in 
Merrimack county has been known and called by that name, alone and 
invariably-with variations in spelling— more than 150 years, or since 
September, 1725; that the mountain so called in Carroll county was 
first known or designated as " Pequawkett," and was never known or 
called Kearsarge until subsequent to 1780, or after the settlement of 
that section of country by people chiefly from Merrimack county, 1765- 

1775. 

Resolved, (2) That, to avoid confusion in geographical names within 
the state, we regard it as desirable that the said two mountains should 
be definitely distinguished by some proper authority ; and inasmuch as 
the prior name of the one is historically fixed, both on maps and in 
written records, and that of the other is more recent, and belongs to a 
portion of the state known in all our early annals as the " Pequawkett " 
—famous also in historic events ; -therefore, in the opinion of this soci- 
ety, it would be highly appropriate and honorable that the name by 
which it was first designated, and by which it was called on the maps 
published by authority of the state in 1816, by Philip Carrigain, Esq., 
should be retained, viz., Pequawkett mountain. 



THE ANNUAL ADDRESS. 

JUNE 12, 1878. 



BY JOHN T. PERRY, ESq. 



My subject, if such a distinction can be claimed for a series 
of rather loosely connected comments on various phases of the 
past, and their still more varied treatment by modern critics, 
each of whom gives them a turn in his own kaleidoscope, is 

THE CREDIBILITY OF HISTORY. 

It has been said that the historian is a prophet looking back- 
ward. In the remotest antiquity a similar though further 
reaching distinction was awarded the poet. The same word 
was applied to him and to the prophet. This blending of 
meaning no longer exists; yet the union of functions has not 
altogether disappeared. Pope certainly wrote for all time 
when he declared that " The proper study of mankind is 
man." 

But how shall man be studied? Psychologically, by placing 
mind in the witness-box and compelling it to be both its own 
eulogist and accuser ; physiologically, with the knife of the 
anatomist and the microscope of the optician, aided by com- 
parisons of the genus homo with other mammals, and of the 
man of to-day with the cave-dweller; aesthetically, by convert- 
ing beautiful abstractions and lofty aspirations into entities most 
shadowy when most charming ; or, lastly, shall we judge him 
by his works? 

A dogmatic utterance on the relative importance of any 
branch of human knowledge cannot win universal acceptance ; 
but I shall not be deemed presumptuous by my present audi- 
ence in ranking history among the sciences. 



LE N 10 



